Presentation of Educational Collaboration

Teacher-Teacher Collaboration Overviews.

Restructuring schools for collaboration: promises and pitfalls By Diana G. Pounder

This book (preview) discusses the need for and problems in achieving collaboration in schools. It focuses on inter-teacher collaboration. It states the 2 main benefits as:

1) To increase the democratization of schools
2) to enhance school effectiveness and/or increase productivity


Sociology of Education: Major Themes By Stephen J. Ball

This book (preview) expounds the virtues of collaboration, again focussing on teacher-teacher collaboration, citing research that goes into point 2 above in great depth- improving teacher effectiveness, morale, and willingness to take risk. It also reduces the dependence on outside experts, and with today's (the past few decades') more diverse, inclusive, classrooms, allows teachers to face these demands by sharing their differing strengths- e.g. sharing strategies on coping with ADHD students.

Conversely the book goes on to list critiques of such collaboration in 2 ways:

1) the difficulties of implementing collaboration e.g. teacher competition and insecurities.

2) the many different forms of collaboration, which if done poorly will not all produce positive results. For example 'contrived collaboration' is rarely as effective or welcome as spontaneous and sincere collaboration.

Ella's tentative presentation

1. The ACCC's mandate on collaboration/partnerships, within Northe America Colleges/Universities, and International collaborative projects.
2. Canadian effective collaboration by ACCC
3. Resources /funding available
   

More on the ACCC re promoting partnership

Governments Act to Renew Universities and Colleges: Canada and British Columbia Invest in Research Capacity

VICTORIA, British Columbia, April 8, 2009 — The Honourable Tony Clement, Minister of Industry of Canada, along with the Honourable Murray Coell, Minister of Advanced Education and Labour Market Development of British Columbia, today announced investments totalling more than $455.1 million in 29 projects at post-secondary institutions throughout British Columbia.

As part of Canada's Economic Action Plan, the Government of Canada introduced the Knowledge Infrastructure Program, a two-year, $2-billion economic stimulus measure to support infrastructure enhancement at Canadian post-secondary institutions, including universities and community colleges. Today's announcement celebrates the first round of projects to qualify under the program in British Columbia.

"Our government's investment provides significant short-term economic stimulus in local communities throughout British Columbia, while at the same time strengthening Canada's long‑term capacity for research and innovation," said Minister Clement. "The renewal of college and university facilities will encourage more world-class researchers to work in Canada and give them the tools they need to make further discoveries that will benefit Canadians and people around the world."

The program is helping to provide economic stimulus and promote employment by creating jobs for engineers, architects, tradespeople and technicians. It is also helping to generate the advanced technological infrastructure needed to keep Canada's research and educational facilities at the forefront of scientific advancement.

"Through our partnership with the federal government, these projects will create almost 3000 jobs across British Columbia, while continuing to build the assets our post-secondary institutions need to support our province's future growth and development," said Minister Coell. "We are working with the federal government to accelerate projects that will support post‑secondary education and provide the jobs our province needs to stay strong for the future."

One example of a project that will be funded is the six buildings being renewed at the University of Victoria that average 40 years of age. The renovations to the six buildings — the University Centre and the Cornett, Clearihue, Elliot, MacLaurin and Cunningham buildings — are expected to extend their useful lives by another 40 years, while improving safety and updating facilities to support today's education programs. The project is expected to get under way in May.

Canada's Economic Action Plan sets out to stimulate the Canadian economy over the next two years and to improve our long-term competitiveness through $12 billion in new infrastructure investment, which includes the $2-billion Knowledge Infrastructure Program. This new support is the next substantive investment in the Government of Canada's multi-year Science and Technology Strategy, Mobilizing Science and Technology to Canada's Advantage.

Content of my presentation

Here are several aspects I would like to cover in my presentation:

1. Current situation of inter-disciplinary collaboration: government, industry, universities, and faculties/departments
2. Barriers faced by universities
3. A case of Inter-disciplinary Collaboration in a Chinese university

Basically, my presentation is based on the two articles I posted on our blog. I have sent the PPT file to Weijia since she needs to know what we will talk about. Peter, please let me know if you need this file as well for your conclusion J

Doris

Our group presentation

According to our discussion last week, we should work on our own topics and put them together finally. I post this just to make our tasks clearer :-)

1. Weijia introduces collaboration in general and the problems encountered (5 minutes);
2. Peter talks about collaboration within school (5 minutes);
3. Wejia talks about collaboration within faculty (5 minutes);
4. Doris talks about inter-disciplinary collaboration (5 minutes);
5. Ella talks about collaboration among colleges (5 minutes);
6. Peter gives the conclusion (5 minutes).

Does this schedule look fine to you? If you all agree, we could start to work on our own part. By the way, do you think we need a PPT for our presentation? If we do, we need someone to put several parts together. If you don't mind, I could do this. Please send your PPT files before Wednesday midnight. Then I could put them into one file on Thursday and bring it to classroom. If you want to talk without PPT, it is just fine. Please let me know what you prefer :-)

We may not need a rehearsal, but I guess we need to know each other's work and make our presentation flow smoothly. How about we meet half hour before the class, 5pm in our classroom?

Doris

Intra-school collaboration

Here are some issues I intend to research:

Teaching sturctures- what organisational structures are used in schools and how do they support collaboration?

What measures are there in place to support collaboration between teachers? How successful are they and what benefits do they bring?

To what extent do teachers collaborate with other staff such as educational psychologists?

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Just tried to post, nothing came through.

ACCC Strategic Plan with collaboration and partnership

Strategic Plan 2009-2012
Strategic Direction #1
ACCC Will Advocate for Members
Promote the excellence of members as the prime providers of advanced skills and applied research for social and economic development.
Goals
Optimize relationships with the federal government.
Develop an advocacy plan in consultation with members and their regional associations to influence policy and seek resources.
Mobilize members around shared objectives.
Foster national and international partnerships to benefit members.

Strategic Direction #2
ACCC Will Engage and Support Members
Be a catalyst for innovation and collaboration to enhance the success of members and their students.
Recognize and serve the diversity of member institutions (metropolitan, rural, anglophone, francophone, aboriginal, polytechnic, institute, college, cégep, university college and baccalaureate) by organizing forums to define common interests and strategies.
Convene members around exemplary practices.
Goals
Showcase and share members' innovative capacities and achievements.
Respond to the diversity of members by recognizing and supporting their unique realities.
Facilitate accessible pathways for students to pursue studies domestically and internationally, and promote enhanced credential recognition.
Expand opportunities for members to connect faculty, staff and students with the national and international communities.
Strengthen member capacity through national and international partnerships.

Strategic Direction #3
ACCC Will Pursue Organizational Excellence and Be an Employer of Choice
Inspire staff, demonstrate fiscal sustainability and exercise effective governance.
Goals
Adopt leading edge human resource development practices.
Function with excellence in both official languages.
Enhance workplace wellness, health and safety. Achieve and maintain financial sustainability.
Be a model of excellence in policy governance.
Establish an accountability framework.

Canadian Partnership Perspectives

The Association of Canadian Community Colleges (ACCC) is the national, voluntary membership organization created in 1972 to represent colleges and institutes to government, business and industry, both in Canada and internationally.

With an Ottawa-based Secretariat, ACCC interacts with federal departments and agencies on the members' behalf and links college capabilities to national industries. As another part of its mandate, ACCC organizes conferences and workshops for college staff, students and Board members to facilitate networking and participation in national and international activities such as sector studies, awards programs and linkages.

This Section includes corporate information on:

• Vision, Mission, Values and Operating Principles
• Structure and Overview of the Organization
• ACCC Structure, Overview and Governance Model
• Secretariat Structure and Departmental Responsibilities

·

The partnership approach it has initiated with competing groups in the national as well as in the international context has given the organization an environment of trust where it can work more effectively for the colleges. Partnerships with the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC), World University Service of Canada (WUSC), Universalia, and Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE) are just examples of productive collaborative efforts to improve the educational image of Canada in the world market and to bring a more coherent Canadian educational voice to the world.
Internationally, ACCC has forged linkages with other national organizations involved in technical and vocational education. Many representatives from these organizations attended the last annual conference. As nations now form blocs with each other to meet the challenges of the world economy, ACCC aims to develop more experience in this multinational bidding environment for international financial institution projects. The growth of the organization over the past years and the growing credibility it has in the national and international scene, as well as the working partnerships it has established, place ACCC in a stable position to develop a plan of operation which will respond to the emerging priorities and challenges facing the college/institute system in today's rapidly changing environment.

An article on Risk Management , Canadian College Partnership Program for you to browse through which may offer you some perspective on collaboration. The link provided below.

http://www.accc.ca/ftp/pubs/International/International-11-1.pdf

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To advance with times---- A study of a teacher training workshop

Abstract:
“To advance with times” is a political claim of the Chinese government in response to the dynamic changing force of globalization. To fall in line with the international practice has become a national golden rule. Foreign language teaching for English majors, in this drive, is placed in the forefront of higher education reform, since language evidently is the key to the stage of world.
This paper is to provide a detailed description and analysis of an English teacher training workshop at Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) by drawing on some of my insights and theoretical knowledge, in an attempt to discuss the necessity of in-service English teacher training in higher institution and interpret the evidence of its effectiveness in face of global challenges.
The discussion and analysis is divided into three sections. Firstly, a base line study will be carried out to detail the underlying problems, which signifies the urgency of the teacher training. Secondly, this will be followed by a description of the training detail at the workshop. Thirdly, an analysis will be given to weigh the effectiveness of the workshop on actual classroom teaching practice. Also, a discussion will be brought about to consider the improvement of the workshop for the next round of training, its appropriateness of operating a workshop on a regular base and how to ensure its proper function in the long run.

I. The macro- and micro- environment behind this initiative
Over the past 30 years, China has been undergoing a revolutionary economic reform in order to “keep pace with the time”. Her active participation in the international practice makes the professionals with high proficiency in English in great demand. English language, without any doubt, has become a stepping stone for decent jobs. A more forceful push is that the Ministry of Education requires university students to pass National College English Test for graduation. Among all the graduates, English majors (who majored in English literature and linguistics), differentiating themselves from non-English majors, are marked with more distinctive labels as competent English speakers. On top of that, foreign language universities, such as Beijing Foreign Languages University and Shanghai International Studies University (SISU), are reputably committed to cultivate English language elites with “high-quality, multiple skills, international vision, spirit of innovation, and capacity of practice”.
SISU was founded in December 1949. It was named the Shanghai Foreign Language Institute and became a national key university approved by the State Council in 1963. Approved by the Ministry of Education in 1994, it was officially renamed as “Shanghai International Studies University”. In 1996, it passed the evaluation process of Project 211 directed by the Ministry of Education, and became one of the nation’s “100 key universities for the 21st Century.” The centre of National Test for English Majors (TEM) also has its headquarter at SISU and it is run by professor and experts from SISU. Generally speaking, SISU and the alike are usually regarded to take the lead in China’s English language teaching (ELT) at tertiary level.
Behind all the fame enjoyed home and abroad, SISU and its alike, at present, have faced with a number of challenges. With more and more English language speakers of high calibre emerging from non-English majors, English majors clearly feel the threat, since non-English majors has their specific professional knowledge other than English. As a result, a once promising major has stuck at the bottleneck. English majors seem lost their competitive glamour in the job market. The proper change and alignment, therefore, are critical to SISU.
Within the changing wave, one initiation is the most encouraging, that is, to organize a teacher training workshop, which is the first of its kind in the history of SISU. The participants are young teachers under 35. They vary from novice teachers up to the teachers of 8- year teaching experience. Young and energetic though, this group is particularly burdened with heavy teaching duties, demanding academic research work and personal life changes (such as marriage, taking care of babies).
A typical growing path of TEFL teachers at SISU is that he/she is postgraduate from SISU, majored in English literature and linguistics. He/She immediately shifted his/her role from a fresh graduate to a university teacher and is directly put into the classroom for survival. One teacher wrote in the participation report. “During my postgraduate study, it is such a pity that I have never had any proper teacher training or teaching placement. After graduation, I started teaching and found myself like a lost lamb without any confidence. I wanted to study teaching methodology but don’t know how to start. I am reluctant to consult with experienced teachers, since they are fully occupied and they may not know well about the methodology.”
Another common belief on college ELT teachers in China is that “they know more English, they will teach better” (Maley, 1983: 97) According to Shulman (1989), there is a theoretical scheme of identifying three packs of knowledge for teachers: subject matter knowledge, pedagogic content knowledge and curricular knowledge. For subject matter knowledge, undoubtedly SISU teachers can represent a highest level. However, for pedagogic content knowledge and curricular knowledge, they showed their ignorance and incompetence. Even worse, the loose contacts among teaching staff are unfavourable for information exchange, teaching skills update and teaching problem solving. A decade ago, there used to be a regular consultation hour for teaching each week. Now it seems hard to organize, because the campus was moved to a remote area and teachers are unwilling to travel far for the meeting. Consequently, teachers are left alone to arrange class delivery and deal with teaching difficulties on their own.

II. Narrative of teacher training workshop at SISU
The workshop was hosted and conducted by the College of English Language and Linguistics (CELL). The authority body valued its important and gave their full support. Other ELT teachers from College of International Finance and Trade, College of International Business, College of Journalism and Communication, the Law School, College of International Education, College of International Cultural Exchange have also taken an active part in. All together 65 participants attended this two-month long workshop, which included lectures, seminars, group discussion and expert teachers’ demonstration classes. The following is a detailed account of how the workshop operated.

Session One: how to be a good teacher in China?
There are 5 sessions of this workshop. Participants joined in each week for different types of activities. At the beginning of the first session, there held a brief opening ceremony. Dean of CELL Professor Mei hosted the ceremony. He claimed that a good variety of training activities in the workshop would enable the teachers to have maximum gains. He also encouraged them to absorb, digest and internalize as many updated information and methods as possible.
Following on, President of SISU, professor Cao delivered a lecture on the topic of “teaching ethics and teaching capacity”. On one hand, he reviewed some traditional educational doctrines that have been influential in Chinese teaching and learning style. In fact, Zhang and Watkins’ (2007) research coincides with professor Cao’s speech theme. They both emphasise on the attributes of a good teacher should “not only promote students’ intellectual or academic development, but also enhance their conduct or moral behaviour.” (Zhang and Watkins, 2007) This belief can be traced back in ancient China while Han Yu, a prominent scholar in Tang Dynasty, wrote in his book Shi Dao (On teachers): “ What is a teacher? A teacher is the one who shows you the way of being human, teaches you knowledge and enlightens you while you are confused.” (Liu 1973, cited in Zhang & Watkins, 2007)
On the other hand, Professor Cao reiterated the importance of improving teaching skills and teachers’ persistent pursuit of their professional development. One equation he created shed the light on the essence of teaching: “quality teaching = (students + teaching materials + environment + teaching approaches) x teachers’ virtue and aptitude”. He concluded his speech by quoting Shakespeare’s famous remark: “The time of life is short, to spend that shortness basely, … Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.”
Session Two: theoretical update
From the second session, the workshop was organized by Honorary Dean of CELL, Professor He. In the second session, he invited Professor Zou, expert in developing ELT pedagogic skills, to facilitate participants with updated teaching methods and information and he also held a question and answer section for further discussion. In his speech, he covered three questions: What has research told us about language education? What has research told us about research methodologies in language education? What innovations are teachers making in language education? Research findings help ELT teachers to formulate a whole picture language education and its evolutionary process. Research also makes teaching approaches multiplied and give teachers’ a wide and wise selection to suit for their own teaching.
The highlight of his lecture is that he introduced his innovation of one teaching method: TELOS. He explains that “The TELOS model of the integrated skills of English language teaching based on a nine-year long curriculum and course development for Chinese learners at the foundation stage of the tertiary level. The acronym represents five key elements for conducting a class.” (Zou 2006) They are: 1) Target language input; 2) Engagement; 3) Learners’ active choices; 4) Comprehensible output; 5) Selective negative input. This teaching method has a solid theoretical foundation, such as Input Hypothesis by Krashen (1985), Stern’s Humpty-Dumpty Effect (1983) and Swain’s Comprehensible Output(1985). It “integrates a full spectrum of language skills and knowledge into one nutshell course. Their intricate relationship among the five components is demonstrated through the principles and methods of how the model is implemented in classroom practice.” (Zou 2006)
The initial outcome has been, on the whole, positive. Surely, this method needs more adaptation and adjustment. Professor Zou suggested that teachers who teach freshmen also can have a try so as to assess its suitability for comprehensive English class at SISU. Many participants showed their interests in its implementation.
Session Three: expert teachers’ demonstration class
The third session and fourth session are teacher representatives’ demonstration class. Professor Wu, 38, teacher of American Literature, has a profound knowledge on American and English literature. What impressed the audience most is his passion full of inspiring ideas. By analyzing the development of American literature history, he supplemented much fundamental literary knowledge to help audience comprehend various terms and notions. The whole class flow with a large amount information.
Teacher Gu, 27, champion of a national public speaking contest, did a demonstration class for the course of public speaking. She herself is a good example of successful English learner from SISU. Her liveliness vivify the class atmosphere. She tries hard to impart public speaking skills and amplify the students’ opportunity for practice. Her skillful operation of computer technology is another eye-catching feature of her class.
Associate Professor Gong, 35, teacher of junior comprehensive English class, has her own melodious teaching style. Her preparation could be described as meticulous. This course is to integrate speaking, listening, reading and writing skills in order to enhance students’ overall language ability. Gong selected some reading materials from the textbook, pretending that the teachers sitting in workshop were all her students. She guided the teachers to understand the content and carried out a discussion related with the theme. The most impressive part is how she let the teachers appreciate a speech called “Give me liberty or give me death”. She asked one teacher to read and then display a version read by professional actor. The effect of this activity received much praise.
Professor Wang, 50, is teacher of American culture. His exceptional fluent spoken English has attracted a group of secret admirers. Moreover, his teaching style distinct from our traditional way is another striking point. He talked about “American government” in the demonstration class. He threaded through a hierarchical scale of American government, filled with a large quantity of information and sparkled his ideas with humourous remarks. At the end of his demonstration, a wild applause flooded the workshop.
Session Five: learn from communication
The last session was rounded off by a consultation workshop. Teachers were divided into several groups. Professor He, the head of the workshop, invited the leader of the group to relate their teaching experience and the difficulties they met in the teaching. The rest discussed the most suitable way of solving the problem. For example, one teacher said that there are too many language features in the text. She couldn’t finish analyzing them within one and a half hours. Teacher Zhang used one idiom to illustrate his point of view: “He teaches ill who teaches all.” Teachers should not spoon the students all the details, otherwise, in the long run, the students would be taught nothing “but the shape of the spoon” (from Edward Morgan Foster). After heated discussion, the final solution was to rank the importance of language features and give priority to the most important.
Through the sharing and caring, many teaching elements were discussed, such as cultural studies on multiculturalism, computer techniques update, teacher cognition issue, which provided the next round of workshop with a wider range of training focus.

III. A Brief Evaluation of teacher training workshop
The direct benefits from the workshop will be summarized as follows. They are collected and compiled from a thorough investigation by means of interviews, survey, participation reports and a collection of teaching diaries.
1) The workshop is a place for information exchange and affective comforts.
As mentioned in the first part, teachers at SISU seldom get together for teaching consultation. This workshop takes an ice-breaking effect to link up young teachers from different colleges for the first time.
Teacher Zhang wrote: “I am grateful for CELL to organize this teacher training workshop. I came here to listen, to learn, to talk and to think. The gains are abundant.” Teacher Zhang reveals the true feeling of the young teachers at SISU. They are eager to be gathered for more communications, which will let the information flow naturally and efficiently.
Teacher Hou said: “ It is a golden opportunity for me to learn from my peer and talk with my colleagues. In the past, the odd situation in SISU was that we hardly discussed with each other on the matters of teaching. Now, the workshop pushed us forward to voice our opinions and relate our troubles.”
Freeman (2000) cited that “there are internal boundaries of belief, prior knowledge and so on that are equally potent in affecting teachers’ work….In (teachers’) daily work, unwittingly, teachers build and maintain the boundaries themselves.” It is inevitable that, if the regular communication among teachers has broken down, to rebuild it takes efforts and courage.

2) The workshop directs young teachers’ future professional development.
Many young teachers talked about their confidence in future teaching career. Before attending the workshop, they think teaching is such a repetitive work. They are reluctant to implement a new method. Now, they are inspired by expert teachers’ demonstration class.
Teacher Guo said: “Expert teachers acquire a sound knowledge of English language. They have a clear goal for self-improvement in teaching. They seem never tired of attempting new approach. I shall do the same in future.”
Teacher Yu said: “I have been fully absorbed in their demonstration class. I have never imagined that English class would be that eye-opening.”
Expert teacher Gong in the demonstration class said: “Teaching is to open a window for the student’s mind.” With this belief, Gong works hard while preparing each lesson and keeps a keen eye on the students’ actual progress in language competence.
The workshop, therefore, solves partially teacher identity’s puzzle. Tsui (2007) introduced Wenger’s (1998) proposal on three modes of belonging: engagement, imagination and alignment. The most noteworthy, here, is the engagement. “Engagement in practice is a powerful source of identification in that it involves investing ourselves in what we do as well as in our relations with other members of the community.” (Tusi 2007) So, in the community of SISU, young teachers finally found the compass to establish a sense of belonging and set off for further professional development.
3) The workshop enables young teachers to embrace more theoretical TEFL knowledge.
The acquisition of pedagogic knowledge took place explicitly and inexplicitly in the course of workshop. On the perspective of explicit input, Professor Zou shared with young teachers his recent research product as well as his good study on the issue of TEFL.
Teacher Dan wrote: “Professor Zou’s lecture let me feel shameful, because I know very little about the theories of TEFL. I have been teaching for six years. I might explore and accumulate some teaching skills but it has never been consolidated by the pedagogic knowledge. It is time for me to make up for this missing part.” Teacher Li said: “ Professor Zou let me know how to start learning TEFL theories. It is exactly what I expected for the workshop.”
Inexplicit absorption took place during demonstration classes and consultation session. Demonstration classes are the source for young teachers to know different styles and approaches of teaching in reality. Consultation session allows teachers to generate from their own teaching experience to offer better solution. Teacher Shi wrote: “Gong’s teaching method suits me well. I experimented in my class and received a good feedback. I shall prepare the lessons in different angles, so more contents will be dug out for discussion.” Teacher Zhang said: “I used to be mechanical and single minded. I separated my lesson plan from one to another. I have never thought that I should view a lesson as one part of a whole course and design it in a complete sense.”
Dreyfus brothers’ (1986: 28) pointed out the format of advancing process from a novice to an expert. When teacher escalated to the level of “proficient practitioner”, he has formed “know-how” knowledge and obtained holistic similarity recognition. An expert has a distinctive feature which is to carry out “deliberative rationality”. (Dreyfus & Dreyfus 1986:36) Therefore, if a teacher takes part in a reflective work, he is on the right track to be a competent or proficient teacher.

IV. Conclusion
This tentative workshop has received a number of recommendable suggestions for improvement. Teacher Yang expects to observe more teachers’ demonstration class, especially, on the part of their lesson plan. Teacher Wang suggests that teachers from other college will give a demonstration class as well. The participants have also expressed their strong wish for further development of the workshop. More importantly, a smooth operation of workshop is a key factor for its long survival. The workshop should be conducted on a regular base. Each college can take turns to organize a specialized session of the workshop. Interdisciplinary topics will be more welcome, for example, ICT (internet communication teaching) integrated course delivery, ICC (intercultural communicative competence) and TEFL, Cognitive knowledge and TEFL, Applied Linguistics and SLA (second language acquisition), TEFL assessment and curricula design.

References:
Dreyfus, H. L. & Dreyfus, S. E. (1986). Mind over machine. New York: Free press.
Freeman, D., Practical epistemologies: Mapping the boundaries of teachers’ work. In IATEFL 2000: 11—19.
Krashen, S. (1985) Input Hypothesis Ñ Issues and Implications. London & New York: Longman.
Liu, Z. (1973). Shi Dao (The way of teachers), Taipei, Taiwan: Chung Hwa Book Co.
Maley, A. 1983. “XANDU—a miracle of rare device”: the teaching of English in China. InLanguage learning and communication, 2, 1: 97—103.
Stern, H.H. (1983) Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching. Shanghai: Shanghai foreign language education press.
Swain, M. (1985) Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development. In Gass and Madden (eds). Input in Second Language Acquisition. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.
Tsui, A.B.M. Complexities of Identity Formation: A narrative inquiry of an EFL teacher. In TESOL Quartly 2007/4: 657—680.
Zhang, Q. and Watkins, D. Conceptions of a good tertiary EFL teacher in China. In TESOL Quartly, 2007, 4: 781—790.
Zou, W. On the TELOS Model of the Integrated Skills of English Course for Chinese Learners at the Foundation Stage of the Tertiary Level, In Chinese Foreign Language Education, 2006,1: 50—56

A case of cross-disciplinary collaboration

Here I would like to describe a real case of cross-disciplinary collaboration in the university I used to work. It would be nice if you could contribute to the analysis of the case.

This was a joint bachelor degree program between the Software Engineering (SE) School and the Department of Mathematics (Math). The university was under the pressure to promote inter-disciplinary cooperation from the Ministry of Education. So university leaders were looking for possible projects to fulfill their job duties. After some investigation on job market, several possible entry points had been found. One of them was the increased demand on professionals with strong math background and programming skills. Therefore, the university discussed with the two faculties, the Software Engineering School and the Department of Math, to see if they could work together to produce students with two strengths.

The two faculties had several meetings to discuss and produced a proposal for a joint degree program. This was a four-year undergraduate program with the first two years in Math and the last two years in SE. A new curriculum had been designed to meet the demands from industry. The intention was to let students learn more math courses than normal SE students and master more programming skills than normal Math students. From 2004, the program started to recruit students from freshmen who originally enrolled in SE or Math programs through the National College Entrance Exam.

The collaboration between faculty members was fine even though we saw very little cooperation in teaching. Seldom do they work together to make courses from two parties consistent and collaborative. Basically they just teach these students in the way they teach students in their own departments. However, the administrative staff faced many problems and difficulties due to the two different managerial systems in two departments. Math department is a traditional department which adopts typical structure of administration while SE school is a new established school with more autonomy on teaching and financial affairs. Conflicts were everywhere. For examples, teachers from Math complained that they got paid less than SE teachers while staff in SE complained that people in Math were not cooperative in course arrangement, student administration, etc. Leaders in two departments have different views and expectation on the programs.

Before the first group of students in this program graduated, people found that the good intention that trains students good at both math and programming was not realized. In 2007, the first group students encountered difficulties in finding places for internship and this meant that they would have the same problems for job hunting. Students complained that they were not good enough to compete with SE students in programming while cannot compete with Math students in computing! The outcome turned to the completely opposite direction of the planned one.

The program stopped recruiting students in 2006, two years after the launch of the program. It has not gone through any assessment to give a concrete conclusion if it was successful or failed. However, people who had involved in the joint program generally agreed that it was a failure in many aspects.

This joint program was initiated from top of the university. However, the leaders did not give any clear guidelines of working jointly. The two involved parties were not very interested in this program since they could not see many benefits (financial and non-financial) from it. The routine work which included endless disagreement and conflicts greatly reduced people’s passion and patience of working together. Finally, the outcome was not satisfied by both students and staff.

What’s wrong with this cross-disciplinary collaboration?

Difficulties for inter-disciplinary collaboration in Chinese universities

I would like to talk about the inter-disciplinary collaboration in Chinese universities. The status is quite complicated, so I will touch only the university I worked for.

On the national level, the Ministry of Education in China encouraged inter-disciplinary. It has created some opportunities for this kind of cooperation, such as some projects in the national 863 projects or similar programs. Even at the institutional level, administrators also encouraged it by implementing some internal policies. However, the progress is not satisfied. There are some reasons.

The priority of interdisciplinary collaboration is not very high. Even though institutional leaders are encouraging collaboration across disciplines, they still think it is a complimentary to the normal teaching and research within disciplines. Internal policies have been made to promote this kind of internal cooperation, but the implementation is not compulsory. It is up to each discipline to decide if to implement these policies or not. Meanwhile, inter-disciplinary collaboration weights very little in the institutional assessment system and this has make faculties and departments give it very low priority on their working list. Furthermore, some people think that only those faculties and departments that are not doing well at traditional teaching and research have to consider inter-disciplinary collaboration as an opportunity to improve them through innovation. It is very common to see that new faculties and departments are more eager to work together while traditional strong disciplines are not interested in cooperation at all.

The structure of current Chinese universities cannot facilitate the inter-disciplinary collaboration. China’s higher education system followed the model from former Soviet Union that a university is strictly divided by disciplines and much focused on its own matters. Although the Chinese system has gone through reform for several decades, it is still heavily influenced by the old style. Since there is no mediating mechanism across disciplines, it becomes extremely difficult to create joint projects, to solve problems caused by misunderstanding, and to coordinate activities and people from different background. This completely divided system creates many obstacles for inter-disciplinary collaboration. It has decreased the efficiency of cooperation and lowered the possibility of successful collaboration.

Financial consideration is also one of the factors that influence the successful and sustainable inter-disciplinary collaboration. Nowadays, faculties and departments have to carry the responsibility of generating revenue to release the pain of fund cut. Financial consideration has become more and more important when faculty leaders make decisions. Conflicts on how to divide the contribution to joint projects and then allocate income have increased within universities among faculties and departments that involved in joint projects. The more parties involve in the joint program, the worse they fight for financial gains. Seldom could we see successful cooperation without any financial conflicts. Gradually, people lose the temper and confidence of working together.

Heavier workload is another factor making collaboration difficult. Very often, collaboration required more people involved in joint projects, so more communication work is needed. Especially when there are disagreements among people in different units, much more time and energy has to be spent on communication. Very likely this will slow down the work progress and increase the cost. Beside normal teaching or research workload, people have to invest time and energy to do much interpersonal work in order to make the job down smoothly. Typically faculty members are not good at interpersonal skills. Therefore, both faculty and staff complained a lot about joint projects that make their heavy work become even heavier. This has greatly hurt people’s passion on inter-disciplinary collaboration.

There are also many operational difficulties on the way to successful inter-disciplinary collaboration, such as time control, process management, workload allocation, etc. All these have severely postponed the implementation of inter-disciplinary collaboration policies. If the government or institutional leaders could not solve these problems without hurting the benefits of most people, the inter-disciplinary collaboration is very much likely to stop at the moment and contribute little to the development of the country and universities.